


refraction

by Victopteryx



Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon Compliant, Introspection, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25204321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Victopteryx/pseuds/Victopteryx
Summary: The Sharingan remembers everything it sees with perfect clarity.
Relationships: Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 17
Kudos: 119





	refraction

The sharingan remembers everything it sees with perfect clarity.

The first thing Madara’s sharingan saw, spinning into existence as his heart cracked in two, was Hashirama’s face. (The last thing his sharingan will ever see, over 100 years in the future, battered and broken, will be Hashirama’s face.) Madara can recall it in perfect detail – he can pick out each leaf in the far trees, every rock on the riverbank. He can remember the individual strands of hair that blew in the cold wind. He remembers the way Hashirama watched him with devastated eyes, hands hanging uselessly by his sides, oblivious to his father and brother behind him. He remembers the heartbreak in his face.

Madara knows that if someone was, by some impossible twist of fate, able to take his eyes from him (like he had taken Izuna’s), they would be able to see this memory. This would be as far back as they could go — they’ll never see Hashirama laughing with him at the on the clifftop, skipping stones across a wide river, sparring under broad oak trees. Madara takes some small, savage pleasure at the thought that _those_ memories – those memories will die with him.

The Uchiha know not to overuse the sharingan. It’s one of the first things you learn - all the blessings and power it grants come with a steep price (unless it doesn’t - but that comes with a price of its own). Even before he had awakened its eternal form, Madara used his sharingan selfishly. He should have saved it, used it only when needed, conserved every last glimpse of light for the good of the clan – but there were some things he needed to remember. There are still things Madara needs to remember, even now, as his eyes spin and instead of tomoe he sees through bars and circles, linked like a chain.

It doesn’t take long, after all. A split second, here or there – a flash of his eyelashes, and he has an image seared into his retinas forever. That’s all he needs. And if he does it fast enough – and he always does it fast enough – no one ever even notices his eyes flash black-red-black.

It’s a guilty pleasure. It’s voyeuristic. It’s pathetic. It’s another reason, added to the bottom of a long, long list, that Madara would sooner destroy his eyes than let another person take them (like he had taken Izuna’s).

He had Izuna’s memories, too. His little brother’s sharingan awakening when their cousin, Hayako, was killed. Izuna seeing the Aburame clan ambushing them on a moonless night. The Senju clan cutting down their kin like a scythe cutting wheat. Madara can see himself, sometimes, whenever Izuna had turned his red, red eyes his way. He always looks tired. He’s never looking at Izuna. Sometimes Izuna sees Hashirama, as well.

Madara doesn’t usually dwell too long too long in Izuna’s memories. (It’s not guilt that makes him close his eyes.)

Madara knows, if he ever cared to compare the two, that he has those same memories. He always fought by Izuna’s side, after all. He doesn’t care to compare the two, because he knows what he will see if he does. (Izuna, the dutiful son, always so focused on the battle, on protecting his clan. Would that Madara could say the same. He does not look back on their battles with the Senju. He doesn’t want to relive the way his eyes stayed fixed, always, on Hashirama.)

So when Izuna is dead, and Madara is beaten, and the village is built, and the story is over, Madara takes his new eyes – now worthless, in this time of peace – and lets himself be selfish (even though war never stopped him before).

If you were to look through Madara’s eyes, in those slivers of red he flashes now and then, what would you see? you would see Senju Hashirama. Hashirama, laughing in his chair, elbows on his desk, on hand covering his eyes and the other holding some forgotten document as he looks up gleefully at Madara through parted fingers. You would see Hashirama, barely even sweating, holding one end of a giant log aloft so the builders could re-tie their lashings. You would see Hashirama, face pinched in a comical frown, staring at his cards as you lay down your hand. You would see him, breathless and exhilarated, hair flying behind him as he lunges, wooden sword steady in his grip, smashing into you with the force of a tsunami even though you both know you’re just sparring –

Madara has a collection. Madara has an archive. He knows every angle of Hashirama’s face, every expression he’s ever worn. If there was any scrap of artistic talent in him, he could sculpt Senju Hashirama from the ground up. He remembers things he shouldn’t know, like the hollow dip in Hashirama’s collarbones, the small scar across his abdomen that he won before his healing powers had fully manifested - all Madara has to do is glimpse them, once, and he’ll know them as intimately as he knows his own body. (And these memories will be all he has, someday, when his body is old and withered and Senju Hashirama is thirty years dead.)

The sharingan remembers what it sees. It doesn’t remember the sounds, the touch, the smell. Madara can see the way Hashirama’s mouth moves around the syllables of his name – see the tongue flick as he says “Ma-da-ra” – but the memory of the sound leaving his lips, the feeling of Hashirama’s hand brush against his, the smell of pine trees and the steady swell of chakra as they talk – all these memories are secret, something for Madara alone.

Madara doesn’t know what it would be like to kiss Senju Hashirama, because he has never kissed Senju Hashirama. But he has seen Hashirama’s face flush, before. He’s seen him sweat. He’s seen him in a hundred different contexts, and, from a purely visual standpoint, Madara can imagine what it would look like. He can imagine the way Hashirama’s tongue would run along the bottom of his lip, the way his eyelashes would flutter against his warm, tan skin. He can imagine Hashirama’s eyes growing soft and dark, and Hashirama closing them completely as he closes the distance between them. But that’s where the fantasy ends, because even as Madara can picture the very fibers in Hashirama’s haori, he can’t really conceive of what it would be like to feel the press of his lips against his. Would they be warm? Would they be rough, or smooth? Would Hashirama kiss him lightly, gently, like they were children again, or would he come with bared teeth and tongue, scraping Madara’s lips, bruising his skin?

Madara collects his images, his flashes from the corners of his eyes, and hoards them jealously to his heart.

Then, one night, when he’s finally reached his breaking point (one of so, so many), he straps his gunbai to his back, and turns his eyes northward, away from the village (and Hashirama). The next time his red, red eyes will see him, Hashirama will be bitter and betrayed, steel in his hands and steel in his heart.


End file.
